Tuesday, April 01, 2014

He's the new Loreal

SPEAKING TO THESE REPORTERS THIS AFTERNOON, BARRY O INSISTED THE MONEY WAS WELL SPENT, "WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? WASTE IT ON EDUCATION? ON SENIORS? THIS WAS $150,000,000 WELL SPENT."

WHEN IT WAS POINTED OUT THAT $150,000,000 WOULD BE AN ALL TIME RECORD, BARRY O SIGHED, "SURE I COST A LITTLE MORE, BUT I'M WORTH IT."FROM THE TCI WIRE:

In the latest scandal for the Dept of Veterans Affairs, they're turning
away homeless veterans. Senator Patty Murray (Chair of the Senate
Budget Committee) wants to know what the Dept thinks it's doing. Her
office issued the following today:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Murray Press Office

Monday, March 31st, 2014 202-224-2834

Senator
Murray Introduces Emergency Bill to Reverse New VA Policy Change that
Has Shut the Doors of Homeless Shelters to Veterans

Veterans have been turned away in the wake of
sudden VA policy change made in February that limits eligibility for
indispensable grant program that supports homeless shelters and
providers

After Murray introduces legislation, VA NOW says it will temporarily rescind the policy change but final legal opinion could still shutter access for homeless veterans

(Washington D.C.) – U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a senior member of the
Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, on Thursday introduced emergency
legislation that would reverse a sudden and largely unexplained
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) policy change that has restricted
homeless veterans' access to housing and services. Senator Murray’s
bill, The Homeless Veterans Services Protection Act (S. 2179), reverses a
new VA policy by allowing community organizations who receive funding
through the VA’s Grant and Per Diem (GPD) Program to once again count
veterans who don’t meet certain length of service or discharge
requirements when calculating the federal GPD allotment that often
allows these facilities to operate.

Just two weeks ago, a VA memo went out to these programs
forbidding them from counting new homeless veterans who didn’t serve for
two years or were given certain “other than honorable” discharges from
service. That instruction meant that community organizations in
many instances had to begin denying homeless veterans housing, and
reversed the standard that VA and these providers have used for two
decades. No contingency plan was given to provide for the veterans who
would be turned away.

“This is federal bureaucracy at its most heartless,”said Senator Murray. “For
the VA to suddenly tell homeless providers that they are limiting a
successful, 20 year-old program in a way that will put more veterans on
the streets, defies all common sense, particularly when this
Administration has set the bold and commendable goal of ending veterans
homelessness by 2015. If this is a question of cost the VA needs to come
forward and say that and I will fight just as hard for funding as I
will to restore eligibility.”

The change also affects the critical Supportive Services for Veteran
Families program, which allows VA to award grants to organizations that
assist very low income families living in or transitioning to permanent
housing by providing them with a range of supportive services.

UPDATE:
Monday morning VA announced that they would temporarily place a
moratorium on the policy change after Senator Murray introduced
legislation to reverse it. However, the VA has indicated that change is
only temporary until a final legal opinion, which is expected to
reaffirm this ban, is issued.

It would appear the VA doesn't grasp concepts like accountability or
transparency. This is a huge change they made and they did so without
informing Congress. As Senator Murray notes, this impacts a significant
number of veterans.

Along with hiding it from Congress, the VA hid the move from the public.
The last time the VA felt the need to inform the public about the
issue of homeless veterans was in the January 14th press release
entitled "Grant Program One of Many VA Initiatives to End Veterans' Homelessness."
The Secretary of the VA Eric Shinseki is quoted in the release, "Those
who have served our Nation should never find themselves on the
streets, living without hope. These grants play a critical role in
addressing Veteran
homelessness by assisting our vital partners at the local level in their
efforts. We are making good progress towards our goal to end Veterans’
homelessness, but we still have work to do."

Those words ring hollow. Eric Shinseki promised to keep Congress
informed after the first big scandal of his tenure. We covered it here,
the House Veterans Affairs Committee on October 14, 2009.
When the country was aghast to learn the veterans attempting to attend
college on the GI Bill were instead taking out loans and suffering
because the VA couldn't get the checks out. The press, so eager to prop
up the White House, looked the other way and refused to report this
statement Shinseki made in the hearing:

I'll be frank, when I arrived, uh, there were a number of
people telling me this was simply not executable. It wasn't going to
happen. Three August was going to be here before we could have
everything in place. Uh, to the credit of the folks in uh VA, I, uh, I
consulted an outside consultant, brought in an independent view, same
kind of assessment. 'Unless you do some big things here, this is not
possible.' To the credit of the folks, the good folks in VBA, they took
it on and they went at it hard. We hired 530 people to do this and had
to train them. We had a manual system that was computer assisted. Not
very helpful but that's what they inherited. And we realized in about
May that the 530 were probably a little short so we went and hired 230
more people. So in excess of 700 people were trained to use the tools
that were coming together even as certificates were being executed.
Uhm, we were short on the assumption of how many people it would take.
We based our numbers on the Montgomery GI Bill which is about a 15
minute procedure. The uh chapter thirty-three procedures about an hour
on average, maybe an hour and 15 minutes. So right off the bat, we had
some issues with assumptions. Uh, we are still receiving certificates of
enrollment. This week alone, we received 36,000 certificates of
enrollment coming from schools who are working through the process and
we put them into the execute of providing those checks -- three checks.

Get it? He was told there were problems, he then hired a consultant who
said the same thing. But he refused to tell Congress, he refused to
tell the public. Some veterans were still waiting in December and those
with a child or children noted repeatedly that since they were still
waiting for the checks they should have received the previous August or
September, there would be no Christmas for their kids.

Heads should have rolled.

They didn't.

And in all the subsequent scandals we've heard Shinseki do the
Accountability Comedy Routine. That's when a government official says,
"I take accountability." They say that -- and here's the joke -- then
they don't resign and they're not fired. "I take accountability" really
just means, "I'm bored, let's move on."

General Eric K. Shinseki (Ret. USA), Secretary of the
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), has continuously failed our
Military Veterans, including failing to file and execute disability
claims in a timely manner and to provide quality healthcare and housing
for disabled homeless Veterans, particularly in Los Angeles where
there’s already a National Veterans Home established 125 years ago, but
the buildings are vacant and rat-infested while the land is
misappropriated for non-Veteran use.It’s well-documented that nationwide the VA has a shameful back-log
of over 900,000 disability claims with Veterans waiting up to 650 days
to get necessary healthcare care and disability benefits.During a recent Senate Hearing, members of the Senate Veterans
Affairs Committee demanded the VA turn over its internal performance
data to give Congressional lawmakers direct insight as to why the agency
is so dysfunctional.Consistent with the VA’s modus operandi, Allison Hickey, the VA’s
undersecretary for benefits, was evasive, vague, dismissive,
non-cooperative and refused to turn over requested data.

Think about it: If the VA openly and defiantly stonewalls the Senate
Veterans Affairs Committee and denies them pertinent information, what
must it be like for lonely disabled Veterans in the isolated office of
intimidating and confrontational VA bureaucrats?